John Bellenden Ker Gawler
Encyclopedia
Andover, Hampshire
Andover is a town in the English county of Hampshire. The town is on the River Anton some 18.5 miles west of the town of Basingstoke, 18.5 miles north-west of the city of Winchester and 25 miles north of the city of Southampton...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
and died in June 1842 in the same town. On 5 November 1804 he changed his name to Ker Bellenden, but continued to sign his name as Bellenden Ker until his death. His son was the legal reformer Charles Henry Bellenden Ker.
He is noted for having written Recensio Plantarum (1801), Select Orchideae (c.1816) and Iridearum Genera (1827). He edited Edward's Botanical Register from 1815 to 1824 and was famous as a wit and botanist as well as being the author of Archaeology of Popular Phrases and Nursery Rhymes (1837). The 2nd volume of this work was published in 1840. Robert Brown
Robert Brown (botanist)
Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...
(1773–1858) named the genus Bellendena of the Proteaceae
Proteaceae
Proteaceae is a family of flowering plants distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises about 80 genera with about 1600 species. Together with the Platanaceae and Nelumbonaceae they make up the order Proteales. Well known genera include Protea, Banksia, Embothrium, Grevillea,...
in his honour in 1810. The state of Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
has named its second highest peak Mount Bellenden Ker
Mount Bellenden Ker
Mount Bellenden Ker is the second highest mountain in Queensland, Australia. It is named after the botanist John Bellenden Ker Gawler. Located 60 km south of Cairns near Babinda, it is adjacent to Mount Bartle Frere, the state's highest peak, part of the Bellenden Ker Range which is also...
- it is also the wettest known locality in Australia. The Bellenden Ker Range
Bellenden Ker Range
The Belleden Ker Range, also known as the Wooroonooran Range is a coastal mountain range in Far North Queensland, Australia. Part of the Great Dividing Range it is located between Gordonvale and Babinda....
in the same area was also named after him.
His work on English nursery rhymes argued in four volumes that they were actually written in 'Low Saxon', a hypothetical early form of Dutch. He then 'translated' them back into English, revealing particularly a strong tendency to anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence, real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen...
.
The Siberian lily which occurs in eastern Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
was named Lilium pensylvanicum
Lilium pensylvanicum
Lilium pensylvanicum is a species belonging to the family Liliaceae. Sometimes called the Siberian lily, it is native to a cold climate and needs frost in the winter. It is found in the wild form in Siberia, Kamchatka, on Sakhalin and the Kuriles, northeast China, Korea, and Hokkaidō...
by Ker Gawler who had mistaken its origins. A few years later, realising his error, he renamed it L. dauricum, after a region in Siberia. The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, however, is inflexible in these matters and the prior name stood.
Source
- Ray Desmond (1994). Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists including Plant Collectors, Flower Painters and Garden Designers. Taylor & Francis and The Natural History Museum (London).